


Even a Ghost Needs a Friend

by thehaikubandit



Series: Memento Mori (Friendship is Keay) [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: aka Gerry can't sleep and goes for a walk, also featuring the mechanisms!, featuring some panic attacks and some haunted ghost tatts, hell yeah steam punk!, one sleep deprived goth, one suspicious but amazing ex of the body he's possessing, what will they do?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23426284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: Gerry struggles to fall asleep in the Archives and goes for a late night walk. He ends up somewhere very familiar that he's also never been before...
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Gerard Keay
Series: Memento Mori (Friendship is Keay) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647388
Comments: 19
Kudos: 151





	Even a Ghost Needs a Friend

Gerry put down the statement and breathed an exhausted sigh of relief when the tape recorder clicked off. He wondered how many more statements he’d need to make it through the night, because there was no way he was sleeping. He couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore. To fall into the loop of dreams that Jon was trapped in. Not that it was the dreams that made the thought unbearable. More that he’d be waking up afterwards in the Archives, pulling himself out of that never-ending reel of other people’s terror, only to open his eyes and have it scream at him to be read.

Maybe he just needed to go for a walk. And to find some decent coffee. There had to be somewhere around here that was still open, even a 24-hour Starbucks or something. He’d take what he could get; whatever would help him hide that his hands were shaking, and that his bones ached with the fact he hadn’t slept in three days.

He almost didn’t bother with his coat, thinking that the early October air might wake him up a little, but it felt weird to be without it. Stepping out into the street he began to walk aimlessly. Maybe he could get a hotel a couple of times a week? Even a bed in a hostel had to be better than nothing.

Jon had moved out of his place shortly after coming back from America, on edge and jumpy around his once familiar neighbours. Gerry felt slightly guilty that he may have influenced Jon’s decision. Jon had intended to find somewhere new but between getting lost in research and the Unknowing, it hadn’t happened. He vaguely remembered Jon’s small place. And that he’d been staying with Georgie before that. Not that they were his memories, but he’d seen them in Jon’s mind.

When he thought of Georgie, something twinged inside him. It made him feel warm and safe. He should have ignored it; he dealt with plenty of emotional bleed-over from Jon every day. Gerry was still dealing with it if the way their heart fluttered when he saw Martin was any indication. But he didn’t ignore the warm feeling now. Blame it on the exhaustion.

By the time he reached Georgie’s flat, it was nearly two in the morning. He’d never been here before, but he Knew it was her flat. Or even if he didn’t Know, Jon knew and therefore so did he. Jon’s feet had at least known the way. Gerry raised a hand to the buzzer and rang it before he could stop himself.

The pause between ringing and Georgie answering felt like it stretched forever. It was long enough that Gerry remembered it was 2am, that Georgie was probably not going to want to see Jon without him being Jon, and that… well. That this was a very bad idea.

“Hello?” Georgie’s voice sounded tired and a little confused through the intercom.

“I’m sorry,” said Gerry. “Good night.”

“Jon?”

He couldn’t respond to that. It wasn’t his name. This wasn’t his life. He should just go back to the bed on the Archive floor and _make_ himself sleep. He didn't deserve to be here in this stolen body.

“No,” he finally said. “Sorry to bother you.”

He turned and slowly walked away. He could feel tears building and the panic rising in his throat in a way that meant he needed to go _fast_ if he wanted to be away from here when he stopped being able to breathe. He didn’t make it far enough. Georgie found him kneeling and sobbing under a streetlight at the end of her road. His brain somehow found itself fixated on the fact that she’d come down without putting on any shoes.

“Come with me,” she said. And he did.

She settled him on the sofa and started to make tea. Gerry ran his fingers over his coat to try and focus. It was almost his old coat; it should have helped.

“Here,” said Georgie, handing him a mug of tea. She let him take a small, shaky sip before she spoke again.

“So, you must be Gerry.”

He nodded.

“You look terrible. And I’ve seen Jon look pretty bad. What the hell have you been doing to his body?”

“I-” His voice cracked. “I can’t sleep.”

“Hmm. And the glowing tattoos?”

He started and spilt a little of the tea over his hands, their hands.

“What?”

“You’ve got tattoos of eyes all over you. And they’re glowing. They don’t…feel right.”

“I- no? I used to, but this isn’t me.”

“Huh.”

Gerry held the tea for warmth more than anything else. It gave him something to focus on as the conversation lapsed into silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “For being here, and for waking you. I can’t imagine that it’s good to see your friend with someone else... I should...”

“Why are you here?”

“It… It doesn’t matter.”

“You woke me up in the middle of the night, you may as well explain why.” Despite her words, Georgie’s voice was calm and steady. It helped Gerry shake off some of the panic.

“I wanted somewhere safe to sleep, and this bled through from Jon. But I should have known better than to actually come.”

She looked at him and frowned slightly.

“Where have you been sleeping? Or not sleeping?”

“The Archives. It’s just, well, it’s not the friendliest place in the world.”

“I can imagine.”

“Look, I’ll go.”

“No,” she said in a voice that made it clear she wouldn’t accept another answer.

“I may not know you,” she continued. “But if Jon’s still in there enough to send you here, then I need to make sure you’re at least taking care of him. God knows he doesn’t. So, you sleep on the sofa and we’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

Gerry let out a shaky breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

“I, thank you.”

Curled up on Georgie’s sofa, under a thick layer of spare blankets, he felt safer and warmer than he could ever remember feeling. It took no time at all before he slipped into the all too familiar nightmares.

He woke in the morning to the smell of pancakes frying and to the weak October sun hitting his face.

“Good morning,” Georgie called from the stove. She was still wearing her dressing gown and pyjamas from the night before.

“Morning,” Gerry replied. “Are you making me breakfast?”

“I’m making us breakfast,” she said. “I figure that this conversation might be helped by some food. Plus, it’s Sunday morning and I always make pancakes on Sunday.”

“I remember. Oh, well, he does.”

Gerry sat up and froze at the weight on his stomach. The Admiral blinked up at him, unimpressed that his nap was being disturbed.

“Hello,” he said quietly.

“Push him off,” said Georgie. “Otherwise you’ll be there all day.”

He hated to do so, but the pancakes smelled pretty good. He settled for gently placing The Admiral on the floor.

Standing, he realised he’d fallen asleep in his coat and boots. He shrugged off the coat and laid it uncertainly over the arm of the sofa before unlacing the boots. As he wriggled his toes to get some feeling into them, he felt a little self-conscious about the fact his socks didn’t match.

“Can I help?” he asked Georgie.

“There’s juice in the fridge,” she said. “Do you know where the glasses are?”

“Yes.”

He quietly set the table while Georgie continued to cook.

“So,” said Georgie when they both sat at the table with pancakes. “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?”

“I, you seem to know?”

“Melanie told me a little,” she said. “But I’d like to hear it from you. And she didn’t know much.”

“I was trapped in a book,” said Gerry. “Then Jon did something stupid and I got stuck in his head. But it wasn’t really until the explosion that I… took a more active role? It was more like dreams before. I’m not sure how well he could hear me.”

“And Jon’s still alive?”

“He’s… dreaming? I think if I wasn’t here, he’d be in a coma or something. I was. I mean, I woke up in hospital and they said I’d been unconscious for five days.”

“I know that, he still has me as his emergency contact.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“I think he could still wake up?” said Gerry. “If that helps. I mean, it’s not me who’s stopping him from coming back. I know that much. And he keeps bleeding through at times.”

“He’s going to be very unimpressed by the hair.”

Gerry winced.

“Sor-”

“Please stop apologising. Besides, that at least is hilarious.”

“Not the piercings?”

“Hmm?”

“You said he’s going to be unimpressed by the hair, what’s he going to make of the piercings?”

Georgie laughed at that.

“Oh, like these are the first piercings Jon’s ever had.”

“What?”

She grinned, and it had an evil glee to it.

“Wait a second.”

She pulled out her phone and handed it over after a couple of minutes. Gerry saw a photo of Jon with an ear full of piercings and eyeliner. It branched out from his eyes in dark lines. He also appeared to be singing into a mic?

“Oh, fuck off!”

“Don’t you remember that part?”

And then he did, and it all came flooding back to him, the music, the costumes…

“I can’t believe I’ve ended up inside a punk! What the fuck did I do to deserve this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with punks!”

“Apart from a complete lack of taste in music.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know that band was great!”

He pulled a face at her and grinned around a mouthful of pancake.

“Anyway,” said Georgie. “What about the tattoos?”

Gerry stopped smiling and swallowed.

“You said that last night, but I can’t see them, I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re covered in glowing eye tattoos, little ones, on all your joints. At least the ones I can see.”

“Oh.”

“So, you didn’t do that?”

“No. My old body had them, but they never glowed.”

They both fell into silence, broken only by the sounds of them eating.

“You seem to be doing better than last night,” she said eventually.

“I, thank you. For taking me in, for making me breakfast...”

“You seemed to need it. And I’m serious, if Jon’s still in there you need to look after his body.”

“I’m trying. It just… got a bit much. I’ll do better, I promise.”

She looked at him, and even after a lifetime under the gaze of the Eye, it was a look that made him feel exposed, like she could see everything he was thinking and things he didn’t know he was.

“Why don’t you stay here for a bit? I can set up the spare room again.”

“That...” And oh, he wanted to. The idea of feeling this safe every day? It was intoxicating. But Jon had left for a reason. And he wasn’t even Jon, he was just something wearing his body.

“That seems like it’s not very fair on you,” he said. “And I know he… he wanted to keep you away from all of this.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically. “Because that _definitely_ went to plan.”

Gerry looked down to where The Admiral was curling around his ankles.

“I -”

“It’s going to help you,” said Georgie. “And I think it would help me to keep an eye on you. To keep an eye on what you’re doing with him.”

“Believe me, I’ve got enough eyes on me,” he joked.

He was not prepared for her snort of laughter.

“Oh, you can joke about it, I like you!”

“Jon… doesn’t joke much does he?”

“Not anymore, he’s far too busy trying to be _serious_.”

“Ugh.”

“You said he did something stupid,” said Georgie. “What exactly did he do?”

“It’s… it feels like something he should explain.”

“Yeah, that’s what Melanie said you said. But consider it my trade. You get to live here rent free, but you help with the housework and you tell me what he did.”

“I can pay rent!”

“If you want to do that too, be my guest. But you’re not staying unless you tell me what he did.”

He told her.

“Oh, what an idiot...”

“I know right?”

“When he comes back, I want to know straight away. I apparently need to yell at him and explain why you shouldn’t eat cursed books.”

“You’ll be the first to know if I have any say in it,” he promised.

“Good. So, it’s a deal then. You’re staying.”

“Thank you,” Gerry said again. He tried to surreptitiously wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and Georgie was kind enough to look away.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Now, come help with the washing up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to Gier, Space and Bird for their amazing encouragement and ideas. You guys are the best and I don't know what I'd do without you.
> 
> Space is as always to thank for this being anywhere near grammatical, correctly spelled and generally readable. 
> 
> Gier did more amazing art featuring the Admiral! So head over to friendship-is-keay on tumblr to check out some lil toe beans!


End file.
